Slovenia first to connect to EU drug verification system

Slovenia says it has become the first EU member state to be connected to the EU-wide network for the verification of drug authenticity and the detection of falsified drugs, which will come into effect next year.

The Slovenian National Medicines Verification System (NMVS) – run by national operator Zapaz – can now link to the central EU hub and upload transaction data in accordance with the Falsified Medicines Directive (FMD), which in February 2019 requires the use of tamper-evident features and serialized codes to allow medicine packs to be verified before being dispensed to patients.

The announcement comes after a positive audit report from the European Medicines Verification Organization (EMVO), which operates the hub and handles the on-boarding process. Slovenia linked to the hub on April 4 after completing the development of its national system for checking and deactivating the serialized labels.